News of the Servants of the Shrub

Its that time again where balloons fall from the ceiling, babies receive extra kisses, the amount of half truths increase, and gloves go home dirty from countless handshakes. No, I am not speaking of Moltar's birthday but of a good ole fashion Shrubbite Election which sadly hasn't happened in several years, as these events are actually quite entertaining.

Bioware Online Community Manager, Stephen Reid, and Lead SWTOR PvP Designer, Gabe Amatangelo, threw out a quick Q&A via Twitter on Friday. Nothing groundbreaking, but its nice to get new information regularly.

Georg Zoeller dropped by the Official TOR Forums with some very interesting (and I think welcome) news regarding cross-faction communications. It seems the only restrictions on communication (since most everyone in the galaxy speaks the Star Wars Basic "Arubesh" language) will be in planetary and other faction specific chat channels. If a Sith Warrior and a Jedi Knight are standing next to each other on Tatooine, they will be able to fully communicate via the /say funtion and other features like /emotes. This is great news for guilds like ours who will likely have members playing on both sides. I wouldn't expect whispers (/tell) to be available, but you never know. We'll anxiously await more information.

Bioware is at Gamescom 2011 this week, and today was posted a panel presentation that included a fantastic gameplay video with footage from the first line of defense in the Endgame Operation: The Eternity Vault.

David Bass dropped by the Official TOR Forums today to post an overview of the newly announced Guild Testing Program. As it relates to the Servants of the Shrub, we should be eligible for testing as a guild because it appears we meet the minimum guidelines (at least 10 members registered in the Official TOR Guild Headquarters). It is stated that guild leaders will be contacted directly (presumably through email), and given the information to disseminate to the rest of the guild. This is obviously very exciting news, even as the September Beta Weekends quickly approach. Good luck, Shrubbites!

Well those wacky devs are at it again, ninja announcing (via TORSyndicate Podcast) that Phase 2 of the Guild HQ Program may include a Guild Beta Invite! Guild Leaders may be given a Beta Invite along with access for the entire guild.

Looking around oftheshrub.com today compared to what it looked like when Dank and I first started I am blown away at the work that has been accomplished in only a meager two months time. The guild was first established and held a very vibrant membership base back in the early SWG era, boasting one of the best guild websites of the time. At that time the web was growing by leaps and bounds and today having been a part of the growth in the field both Dank and I are excited to be bring the Servants of the Shrub back to the forefront of what a guild portal should be.